Lennart Hammarstrom PhD

Dr. Hammarström earned his Ph.D. from the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, in 1979, and became a professor at the Institute in 1997. He has been working on various aspects of clinical immunology for the past 30 years, concentrating on the genetics of immunodeficiency diseases/autoimmune diseases and different forms of immunotherapy for these patient categories. He has been contributing to these fields by identifying novel genes associated with immunodeficiency diseases such as XLA, IgA deficiency and common variable immunodeficiency. In the immunotherapy field, he has pioneered the use of novel sources of antibodies and antibody fragments for therapeutic use in immunodeficiency patients, using genetically engineered lactic acid bacteria for prophylaxis and therapy in infections affecting mucosal sites.
Lately, his work has concentrated on the genetics of PID and development of newborn screening for PID by analyzing TRECS and KRECS and additional omics using the Guthrie cards and recent data in the latter field will be presented at the meeting.